This weekend may bring relief from high temperatures, smoke

The thermometer on the sign for the St. Johns County Fairground on State Road 207 in Armstrong reads 100 degrees at 5:03 p.m. Monday. By PETER WILLOTT, peter.willott@staugustine.com

Monday's swelter notwithstanding, the area is heading for slightly cooler temperatures and wetter weather toward the end of this week.

And residents might get larger breaks from all that pesky smoke.

National Weather Service meteorologist Jason Hess said that a cold front will move across the area later in the week, upping the chances for the thunderstorms that usually cool off Northeast Florida this time of year.

"If it doesn't rain, (the heat is) pretty brutal," Hess said. "We are expecting things in St. Augustine -- especially Friday and the weekend -- to return to 40 percent or higher chances for scattered afternoon thunderstorms and showers."

He said that the big fires to the north and south -- the Honey Prairie Fire in Georgia and the Espanola fire in Flagler County -- would still brew up smoke but "most of that activity will continue to impact the Jacksonville area and northward."

He said that St. Augustine would still get some, but "It will be patchy stuff."

"The real thick stuff will stay in Jacksonville area," Hess said.

The agency wouldn't know until today what the highest county temperature was Monday, but Hess said it was 93 at the St. Augustine airport and in the mid-90s at least in inland areas, although a thermometer at the St. Johns County Fairgrounds in Armstrong had the temperature reaching 100 degrees around 5 p.m.

Division of Forestry spokesman Greg Dunn said that those temperatures didn't stir up any additional fires, although the agency still is monitoring 27 working fires in the county and 110 in the district, which includes St. Johns, Flagler and Volusia counties.

He said a working fire doesn't necessarily mean flames are showing.

"It can be as simple as hot spots, where once we walk through there and put our hands on the ground and it's warm under there," Dunn said. "It's burning underneath the crust in these wetlands. Once you break the crust is when you're going to see smoke or fire."

He said that last week's rain didn't do a whole lot to squelch the wildfires, which have shrouded St. Johns and Duval counties in smoke off and on over the past few weeks.

"The rains we've been getting, it's been just enough to solidify the crust," Dunn said.

He doesn't expect showers this weekend to put an end to the problem, either.

"We got past today," Dunn said Monday. "Then we supposedly start getting into some kind of rainfall. I'm not holding my breath, but it would be nice to get some rainfall without all the lightning."

St. Johns County Fire Rescue spokesman Jeremy Robshaw also said there wasn't much happening on the fire front.

"It's actually been pretty quiet today," Robshaw said Monday. "Yesterday and today were oddly quiet" except for one small brush fire in the 6800 block U.S. 1 North that firefighters extinguished quickly.